


Soulmates Aren't Just Lovers, You Know

by TheBluestBluebird



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Endgame Evie/Mal (Disney), F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, canon divergence from the beginning of D2, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 13:27:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBluestBluebird/pseuds/TheBluestBluebird
Summary: “I’m going home.” Mal says, once she can speak again. “Everyone here hates me, all the royals and the people and the reporters and-- and our classmates. They all hate me, Eves, I know they do. I’m not good enough for their precious prince and they hate me for it and they’re right. I don’t deserve to be this person they think I am! I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t do it.”At some point in the last minute, Evie’s hand has moved off of Mal’s back. It’s wrong to miss the touch when she doesn’t deserve it, but she wants Evie’s hand back anyway.“Mal, baby, calm down,” Evie instructs, but she’s not touching Mal anymore, and Mal feels empty without the weight of Evie's hand grounding her. “Not everybody here hates you.”“I can’t--”Evie backs up more, which is the opposite of what Mal wants. She needs Evie’s hands to ground her, she needs her, why can’t Evie see that?
Relationships: Evie & Mal (Disney)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Soulmates Aren't Just Lovers, You Know

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that this is just 3000 words of Mal being sad. It's set at the beginning of D2 if that helps give any context. 
> 
> I was going to tag this with references to depression, but honestly it's not referenced. It's just straight-up there. Me, projecting my own pandemic feelings of being constantly out of my coping depth onto fictional characters?? What?? 
> 
> (also just to be clear!! I am not blaming fictional teenagers for not knowing how to support a friend who is having a Really Bad Time!! I just like h/c fic and this seemed like a good place for some of that sweet sweet canon divergence where I give fictional teens way more emotional support skills than any real teen would or should have)

Evie comes in while Mal is throwing her stuff together. In her defense, it probably doesn’t look like a  _ good  _ sign that the new whatever-the- _ fuck  _ Mal is supposed to be now is throwing things frantically into her backpack like an insane person. It looks, okay, really bad, so Mal can forgive a little bit of the tone that Evie’s voice is taking on as she oh-so-carefully steps around the piles of stupid princess clothes that Mal had thrown on the floor when she was tearing apart their closet in seach of her favorite leather jacket. 

(It’s the one with the bloodstain on the right shoulder from the time that Mal had accidentally stabbed herself doing what she and Jay had been calling “knife stunts” and Evie had been calling “a death wish”. It’s a good memory, and Mal is kind of upset that she hasn’t been able to find the jacket. It was a good one. Her purple one is fine too, and the chain sewn into the hem is easy enough to rip out and choke someone with, but it’s not the same as the other one. ) 

“....Mal?” Evie asks slowly. “Is everything okay?” 

Mal rubs her arm over her face. She can’t look up at Evie, not right now. She’s not some stupid princessy type. She knows what she’s doing. 

She shoves another handful of clothes in her backpack instead of answering. Clothes are always good to barter with. They’ll be useful to have, once she’s back home. 

“Mal? Can you talk to me, babe?” 

Mal can’t. It’s like there’s a rock in her throat, and she can’t speak around it. 

Evie moves closer. Oh no.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Mal bursts out, before Evie can do something like try and touch her. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be this-- person they want me to be. I can’t do it anymore! I want to go home.” 

“Mal--” 

Evie’s going to do the same thing that the others did, she’s going to tell Mal that she can’t go home, ever, and home sucked actually and she shouldn’t want to go back because even her own stupid  _ feellings  _ are wrong now and she can’t even get this one thing right. She’s going to say that Mal is wrong for wanting this, and Mal is going to do something terrible if she has to hear Evie, her best friend in the whole world, in the whole stupid castle, tell her that she’s wrong again, so the words just keep on spilling out because Mal. Can’t. 

She can’t hear it again. 

“I can’t!” Mal shouts, before Evie can get the words out. “I don’t care what Ben says, I can’t be the person he wants me to be! I want to go home and I don’t care what the others think about it!” 

It hurts to even say the words. Everyone is going to hate her forever, and it hurts even more because Mal is pretty sure, somewhere in the frozen place where her heart used to live, that Evie is going to hate her for this more than anyone, more than her sort-of-boyfriend already does, and once Mal can get home and let her guard down it’s going to come back, all the feelings that she’s been missing for these awful, terrible months of trying to be  _ good  _ and it’s going to-- 

Well. 

That’s-- 

Mal’s never been good with feelings, but she’s pretty sure that her breath hitching up like this is one of the bad ones. One of the not so princess-approved ones. 

Evie puts a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart,” she says, and it’s so soft that Mal doesn’t know how to feel about it, about the fact that Evie doesn’t seem to be mad yet. Evie is supposed to be mad at her just like the boys had been when she’s asked them to come with her, and it’s not fair that she isn’t reacting how she’s supposed to. Mal doesn’t have the energy for this. She can’t-- figuring out people’s reactions used to be something else she was good at, back home on the isle, but she doesn’t have the energy for it now, not when she’s breathing around a lump in her throat so solid it’s threatening to choke her completely. 

“I-- I--” 

Evie’s hard moves, firm and sweet and just right between Mal’s shoulders. “Breathe, Mali.” she directs. 

Mal breathes. 

“I’m going home.” she says, once she can speak again. “Everyone here hates me, all the royals and the people and the reporters and-- and our classmates. They all hate me, Eves, I know they do. I’m not good enough for their precious prince and they hate me for it and they’re right. I don’t deserve to be this person they think I am! I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t do it.” 

At some point in the last minute, Evie’s hand has moved off of Mal’s back. It’s wrong to miss the touch when she doesn’t deserve it, but Mal wants Evie’s hand back anyway. 

“Mal, baby, calm down,” Evie instructs, but she’s not touching Mal anymore, and Mal feels empty without the weight of Evie touching her. “Not everybody here hates you.” 

“I can’t--” 

Evie backs up more, which is the opposite of what Mal wants. She needs Evie’s hands to ground her, she  _ needs  _ her, why can’t Evie see that? 

“Okay,” Evie is saying. “Okay.” 

“I can’t--” Mal gasps again. She needs Evie to be here, to be the same as she’s always been. But that’s not right either, because until they were fourteen Mal didn’t even  _ know  _ Evie, and that’s almost a worse thought than the ones from before, that Mal and Evie almost missed each other, have already missed years and years that they could have been knowing each other-- 

“Oh. Oh!” Evie says, and reaches out to push Mal by the shoulders, first around to face her and then pressure, pushing Mal down until she hits the too-soft princess bed that Evie loves, loved from the minute they arrived here and Mal still can’t bear to spend a full night in. “Here, sit down. Right here, there you go. That’s it. Let me, ah, here. Hold on to me, okay? Can you feel my hands?” 

Mal can’t. 

“No,” she gasps out. “No, I-- I can’t--” 

“Okay,” Evie says, calm as ever. “That’s okay, Mal, just try squeezing my hands. Squeeze them as tight as you need, okay, until you can feel it. This is going to pass.” 

“No.” 

“Yes. It’s not forever, this feeling is going to pass.” 

Why is her face wet? Mal doesn’t cry. Ever. She hasn’t cried since she was a baby. She didn’t cry when she broke her leg down by the docks when she was ten, and she didn’t cry when Harriet Hook stole her best dagger because she was bigger and meaner and didn’t live in the market district and so she didn’t really care about what Mal’s mother could do to her, and it turned out that the answer was  _ nothing  _ anyway and Mal never did get that dagger back, another thing that’s gone forever, and-- 

“Focus on my voice, can you do that, baby?” 

“No,” Mal gasps out again. She’s not doing anything, so why is her throat seizing up like this? She’s not allergic to anything that she knows of, and besides, she’s fairly sure that dragons can’t actually die from allergies like humans can. Fairy and dragon and  _ god,  _ and Mal still can’t get her shit together.

The thought makes her cry harder. 

“Mal!” 

Evie. 

“I’m not going anywhere, do you understand me?” 

Evie doesn’t hate her, not like everyone else. Even Ben hates her now, and she’d literally love spelled him to do the opposite. 

“Just squeeze my hand, you stupid fairy!” 

Mal tightens her hand around Evie’s. 

“That’s it, Mal. There you go. Focus on me, okay? Just focus on my voice. Can you tell me what you did today?” 

Mal can’t-- 

Evie’s voice is infinitely patient. “Okay, hang on, let me think of an easier one. What did you have for breakfast, how about that, babe? Can you tell me that?” 

“Toast” Mal manages. “And-- and juice.” 

“That’s good. Was it the orange juice from the coast?” 

Oh, gods. Mal can’t even answer the simplest question, and they had been talking about the new coastal trade routes in class the other day. She’s so  _ stupid.  _

“Dunno.” Mal mutters to the bedspread. “Maybe.” 

Evie gives Mal’s hand a little squeeze. “No, hey, that’s fine,” she says easily, like it really doesn’t matter that Mal’s an idiot who is never going to be the princess that Evie wants her to be. “it’s not your job to know. What about your classes, did you go to class today?” 

Mal made it to her morning classes today, before everything got to be too much and she had to ruin everything and run away like the spoiled brat she is. “History.” Mal tells her. “And kingdom geography.” 

“History, okay!” Evie says, picking up the thread that Mal can’t figure out how to finish. Evie should be the one in all of the extra princess lessons, only Evie already knows how to do everything and wouldn’t even need them anyway. Evie probably wouldn’t have to use magic to try and make her boyfriend happy. Evie’s already good at cooking and planning ahead, and Evie with her color coded schedule and her sharp focus would never space out in the middle of an interview and make the whole kingdom think she’s an idiot. “Did Jane do anything interesting?” 

Mal sniffled. “Told the teacher to read his own articles before he assigns them. You were right. She did notice.” 

They had been reading the same articles, Mal’s class and Evie’s, even though they’re in different sections, and the article they had been reading for class today had contradicted information from last week’s lecture. Mal hadn’t noticed, but Evie did, and had bet that Jane, sweet little Jane who’s been finding her teeth ever since her brush with evil, would be the one to call the teacher out on his mistake. 

“Of course I was.” Evie says, gently. “She’s not so bad once you get to know her, Mal. She’s clever.” 

Mal can feel snot dripping down her face, and it’s making her want to vomit. “I just don’t like her,” she says to the floor. “I never know what to say to her.” 

“Your issues with her mom are just with her mom, baby. Jane isn’t the same person as Fairy Godmother.” 

Mal rubs the cuff of her jacket over her nose. “I know.” 

Evie used to cringe whenever Mal would wipe her nose on her sleeve, but she’s more mature now or something, and doesn’t even make a face. Maybe she just didn’t notice. Maybe it’s because Mal isn’t worth noticing. 

“She wants you to do her hair again.” Evie tells Mal, instead of forcing a handkerchief into her hand. “She’s naturally blue, apparently, under all that preventative spellwork she’s had done. If you wanted, I’m sure she’d be happy to learn.” 

Oh, gods. “No!” Mal cries. “I can’t be a bad influence to more people, Eves. I can’t-- I can’t keep being like this!”

“Oh, Mali.” Evie breathes, and pulls her close. 

“I’m--” Mal manages before she’s sobbing but for real this time. At least Evie’s holding her this time, as she cries disgusting, childish tears over her own inability to get things  _ right  _ for a change. It’s pathetic, but it makes Mal feel a tiny bit less awful. 

“Shh, let it all out.” Evie soothes. “I’ve got you.” 

Mal doesn’t want to be soothed. She wants to be able to do it herself, like she did back home. Mal wants--

She wants-- 

Mal is a terrible little creature who wants things that she’s never going to get, but oh, it aches, this kind of wanting. 

“I just want to go home, Eves” she sobs. “I can’t keep pretending to be happy here when I’m not, and I hate that I’m letting everyone down all the time but I just can’t do it anymore, I can’t keep  _ being  _ who they want me to be all the time, and I just-- I just can’t, Eves, please.” 

Evie has cool hands and a firm touch. It’s difficult to place more than that, when Mal is just a hollow core of hurting and wanting and not having anything left inside her heart for more than that. “Shh, shh.” Evie whispers, stroking over Mal’s tired shoulders. “I’m here.” 

Mal sucks in a hot, terrible breath. “It’s like I’m always--” she rasps. Coughs. Tries again. Hot tears shouldn’t be enough to hurt her dragon’s throat, but she’s human now, and humans are so much easier to break than dragons and fairies and gods. “Always trying to make them proud of me and it’s never enough.” 

Evie smoothes her perfect hands over Mal’s hairline. “I know.” 

“I can’t  _ be  _ enough. I can’t-- I can’t be what they all need me to be. I’m not some fearless leader type of person. I’m just a fraud and I can’t even seem to get that right anymore!” Mal cries, before bursting back into messy, disgusting tears. 

Evie holds her, because Evie is perfect and wonderful and more than Mal will ever be able to deserve, even if she keeps trying for the rest of her whole miserable life. “Oh, Mal. Baby.” Evie says, and Mal can’t help it, she sucks in a sharp breath and lets out another terrible, miserable noise from somewhere in her unworthy chest. She doesn’t want to keep trying. 

Even when she’s already being terrible, Mal knows enough not to voice that particular thought. “I want to go home,” she whines instead. “Evie.” 

Evie rocks Mal gently back and forth “I know.” she says. “I heard you, baby.” 

Mal can’t make herself stop. She can’t say the things she actually wants to say, which are all about the blank hole where her heart used to be and the empty place where she used to be able to dredge up a little more energy to push through the boring, awful things that pass for ordinary in Auradon, so she just keeps repeating the thoughts she’s already said. “I wanna go home.” Mal whimpers.. “I hate it here.” 

“Okay.” 

“I want--” 

“I know, baby. You wanna go home.” 

“Nobody-- nobody wants to come with me.”

Evie rocks Mal’s limp, exhausted body down, until she’s flopped over with her head in Evie’s lap. “You are so tired right now, huh.” she says, petting over the long, tangled strands of blonde hair that Mal gave herself nearly a month ago. She did it to herself, is the thing, because Ben would never  _ say  _ that his official for-realsies girlfriend isn’t supposed to have purple hair, but Mal can tell anyway. She can’t stop herself from using magic when she’s not supposed to, but at least she can use it to change her hair into something more appropriate. 

Mal hates her hair. It’s wrong to miss split ends and chopped-short hair. Her old bob wasn’t royal enough, too fine and fluffy to anchor a tiara on, and too purple to ever fit in. It’s supposed to be fun to change up her hair with magic, a small act of rebellion. It used to be fun. 

Mal hates her hair. 

It’s too much to manage and it gets tangled and stuck in everything from her bag to her lipstick, and it’s a pain to manage when it falls in her face in class, and--- 

Mal jolts upright before she can stop herself, even though a second ago she would have sworn up and down that she would never move again. “Oh,  _ motherlover,  _ I have class!” 

Evie shoves her back down, but hard. Ouch. “Skip it. It’s okay, I can email your teachers. You just sit right here and I’ll take care of it, okay?” 

“I can’t let more people down--” 

Evie is already pulling out her phone and tapping away at the bright screen with her perfect glossy nails. Mal can’t keep a manicure on for longer than two days, and Evie, who sews all the time and punches glittering studs into princess dresses for Mal so that she can have something like home even when she’s dressed up like a tiny royal, always has perfect nails. 

“You’re not letting anybody down by taking care of yourself.” Evie tells her. “ I’m calling you in sick for today, and tomorrow too. So sad, how these things hit so fast.” 

Mal sniffles. “And spread to roommates?” she offers. “Please?” 

Evie puts down her phone at that, and smooths her perfect hand over Mal’s forehead again. “Of course, and spread to roommates,” she says. “I’d never leave you alone, okay?” 

It’s too much. Mal turns her head so she’s not looking at all of Evie being all-- Evie. 

“Mal,” Evie insists. “I’m not leaving you, do you understand that?” 

No. 

“Yes,” Mal says. “I understand.” 

Evie doubles down, because she’s too smart for Mal’s lies. Not like other people, who just let Mal hurt them over and over again. “I’m never leaving you, no matter how far apart it seems like we are. You’re always going to be a part of me, okay? We’re connected, no matter what. You can always come find me.” 

It’s too much, for real this time. Mal’s bones hurt, and she can’t do anything else, not with Evie here, and she’s so tired all the time. 

“I just want to sleep,” Mal whispers, still facing away from Evie. “Can I sleep?” 

Evie rubs a hand over Mal’s back. “Okay,” she says. “You can rest, Mal. It’s okay.” 

“Stay.” Mal manages, before her eyes are slipping shut of their own accord, even though she doesn’t want to, and she’d rather spend time with Evie. She wants to be home, but Evie is a pretty good second-best thing. 

Even as she’s barely clinging on to consciousness, Evie’s there. Where would she even go, stupid, Mal tells herself sharply, through the foggy space of almost-sleep. Evie loves it here in Auradon. Thrives on all of the things that Mal can’t do. Won’t do. Could probably do, if she just tries a little bit harder. 

Mal must say something, or make some kind of pathetic noise, because Evie’s hand touches her cheek again and it feels not-awful. It’s a strange feeling. 

“I’m here,” Evie says. “I’m always here.” 

It’s not the same as home. A friend isn’t the same thing as having a purpose. Evie is perfect, obviously, but she’s not the same as having a place to go and things to do every day that don’t make Mal feel like her soul is being pulled slowly out of her body. 

But. 

Anything that feels this good even through the emptiness filling her up can’t be nothing, and if Mal can’t figure out how to be happy on her own, maybe Evie can be a place to start. It’s not perfect. Mal is never going to be the perfect princess they want her to be. 

But maybe it’s a start. 


End file.
